How sad! Television and voice actor, Robert Guillaume, has dead at the age of 89. He was best known for voicing the voice of the wise Rafiki in Disney’s ‘The Lion King’.
Robert Guillaume passed away on Tuesday, October 24, as reported by THR. The actor had been battling prostate cancer, according to the report, and died in the comfort of the home he shared with his wife, Donna Brown Guillaume. Though Robert was both a screen and stage actor, his most notable role was definitely as the voice of Rafiki in 1994’s The Lion King. Robert continued to voice Rafiki through multiple sequels, video games and even a television series. The Grammy and Primetime Emmy award winner was also known for his role on Sports Night, where he suffered a stroke in 1999.
“I was fortunate in the sense that the stroke I suffered was not so debilitating that I could not move around with some degree of regularity,” Robert said during an interview in 2008. “My wife Donna suggested to Aaron that perhaps we could incorporate the stroke into the series and he agreed… it allowed me to come back and not pretend that I had not had a stroke.” But before that, Robert acted in a number of Broadway shows including “The Phantom of the Opera” and “Guys and Dolls”. He was also known very well for playing “Benson” in the Soap spin-off series, Benson.
Source: http://hollywoodlife.com/2017/10/24/robert-guillaume-dead-the-lion-king-rafiki-voice/
